Originally published on PYMNTS.com
Payments have been a pain point throughout the evolution of merchants. As commerce globalizes, merchants are left wondering whether they have the payment methods that people want to use through digital channels, while also facing the sheer magnitude of declines. “Merchants have problems with payments in new and broader and deeper ways than they have in a while,” Modo CEO Bruce Parker told PYMNTS in an interview.
Today’s merchants often have many different providers – perhaps more than a dozen – and perhaps think they need even more, as there always seems to be yet another payment method that none of their existing providers offer (or don’t offer in the right way).
To help these merchants, Modo serves as a market – but not in the sense that it will offer them payment services directly. Instead, the company seeks to help them get connected and interact with providers in an interoperable manner. It can, for instance, help merchants decide who is the best provider for the job on a payment-by-payment basis. That, in turn, “unlocks the opportunity” of what a market has done for thousands of years, according to Parker – which is to optimize purchases by serving as a place where there are many sellers.
Sellers, on the other hand, still face a speed bump even if they have, in fact, built better mouse traps, as merchants have to change how they accept payments in order to make their methods work. That’s the piece of the puzzle from the payment services provider, which wants to bring their capabilities to the marketplace. The limiting factor for most providers is the integration work that is required.
Companies like Modo can do that work, so providers don’t have to support all of the implementations. Merchants simply press a button to turn on a Modo offering after bringing their own credentials. The aim is for payment providers to not have to go through the trouble of implementation, while merchants get access to a world of payment services.